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a christmas love letter...mercury glass christmas trees!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

dear krylon looking glass spray,
i feel like i owe you an apology. just a few weeks ago, i was cursing your name. remember my most recent attempt at mercury glass fail? well, i mean, i got a nice spray-painted dish out of it, but you really frustrated me. and i almost had given up on you. i even contemplated going back to wal-mart, even after all of my trouble there, just to take you back. *sigh.

but then i got introduced to a better technique from Anna at take the side street. her tutorial on mercury glass gave me hope. so i resolved to give you one more shot.

you see, i found these guys at a thrift store. for .55 each.
and i had this idea that the two of you might be friends. and, it turns out, i was right.
i did things a little differently from the original tutorial. my little trees are so small on the inside so after i got off some of the paint with the vinegar solution/paper towel method, i used my fingers to carefully rub away more. it worked better than using a bulky paper towel. it seemed that no matter which direction i moved the paper towel, too much paint was coming off. granted, my fingers feel pretty dry right now. but it's a small, dry price to pay for some wicked cool looking trees on my mantel (i'm totally into trees this year, ps).

here's the final product. if you can't tell, i have a problem. every where i go now, i look for them. to be honest, i have a theory that it's better to have one, or five (at the least) but anything in the middle is lame. so that's what i did. i picked up 7 and the most i paid for one was $1...scandalous, i know. but well worth it.
here's a closeup so you can better see the mercury-ness.

and here they are. on my mantle. looking so freaking awesome.can you believe that green one? i love him so much

so ultimately, i paid $4. and since i already had the paint and the vinegar. we're freaking talking a total of $4. what the monkey. you just can't do that.
so thanks, krylon spray paint for being pretty great. and for letting me give you another chance. don't get me wrong, i'm not planning on taking you to the prom or anything. but i sure would (and probably will) invite you to my birthday party.
lv,
l.

things i've learned:
1. so this mercury glass thing is tricky. and it takes a bit of time. it's not one of these super fast crafts. it takes time to complete and to get better at it. but that's why i'll just keep buying these cheap little glass trees (ps. i think they used to hold candy or something in them. they have plastic lids).
2. candles and a enclosed tree don't quite go well together. so. i'm still trying to find a good flameless candle that doesn't give off that gross orange light. any suggestions? for now, the christmas lights will have to do.

34 comments:

those are freakin' fabulous, as is the way you wrote this post in letter formation. where the heck do you thrift that you find things for so cheap! i literally just came from my fave thrift store, saw the exact tree for 3 bucks, and came home empty handed.

instead of putting candles in them, why not just set them over top of the Christmas lights you've got on the mantle. Then, since you've already got the lights, its even more thrifty. The trees are super cute! Thanks for sharing!

Beautiful trees! I absolutely love them! Oh and if you're near an Ikea, they have a small strand of battery operated Christmas lights with just 10 bulbs. Super cheap and worth it. You can probably find some at Target, etc. as well!

The trees are gorgeous on your mantel. So sorry you had such difficulty with the project. Your mantel lights up with them. Thanks for joining in on Sunday's Best and sharing your Mercury glass Christmas tree project with us.

I just found you tonight. I am new at Pinterest, a novice at blogging, dont know anything about linking up and dont even know where my reader is. Well, I do have a Kindle, a Kindle fire, and of course, computers. But I dont know all the jargon. So, I signed up to receive your blog(?) at my email address. I have gotten sleep deprived addiction to Pinterest and now all you lovely "stuff" ..... may as well sell my bed. I dont see the tutorial on the Mercury glass. Is there a way to find it? By the way, thank you so much.

Hi Lesley, I love your glass Christmas trees. They are so pretty. Thank you so much for sharing your hard work with us. I'm glad you didn't give up. I have recently found your blog and am now following you, and will visit often. Please stop by my blog and perhaps you would like to follow me also. Have a wonderful day. Hugs, Chrishttp://chelencarter-retiredandlovingit.blogspot.com/